Cody R. Wilson is a 25-year-old University of Texas law student working to build semiautomatic weapons using 3D printers. As depicted in this video, his efforts thusfar have concentrated on the part of an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle known as the lower receiver (the part whose sale and possession is regulated federally in the USA.)

Recently Cody’s company Defense Distributed has focused on the production of a 3D printable pistol. Dubbed The Liberator, they report having produced a working model and have released the CAD files. A short video as well as CAD files for The Liberator can be found at DEFCAD.

This entry was posted
on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at 2:00 pm and is filed under 3D fabrication, News, open source, Videos.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

28 Responses to “The Liberator: 3D-printed pistol”

i can’t believe you are posting topics about weapons on your otherwise excellent blog. just think of all the recent violence/shootings/bombings due to free availability of weapons and the like, especially in the u.s. please remove this posting!

Title should probably be “3D printed pistol *PARTS*”.
The BATF for some reason defines a trigger assembly as a “gun”.
There’s no way plastic materials will survive the heat and pressure from launching a bullet…unless you want to be a Darwin candidate or want to try a hand prosthesis :-P

So there aren’t enough guns already? I think its a bloody shame that someone takes 3D printing technology and uses it for anything that is non-peaceful! I bet there’s a million better things to put engineering-effort into! Thumbs down for that guy!!

Weapons don’t do anything unless a person uses them.
There are many ways to create fire guns at home… although knives, swords, arrows, etc. are even easier. You also can make explosives at home, and you only need to go to a supermarket to get the materials.

The problem aren’t the guns, the problem is the people. I’d be more concerned about that gobs make in their laboratories…

Guns are not non-peaceful. Guns by default are not weapons, just as a kitchen knife by default is not a weapon. Hunting and target shooting are popular around the world. Shooting is even an Olympic sport. Many people own guns, but they do not own any weapons.

I have mixed emotions regarding the printing of guns/gun parts. It is a way of bringing attention to additive manufacturing– not necessarily good attention, but attention. The burning of gunpowder to propel a projectile is a ~800 year old technology and zip guns are made in prison so the fact that you can do it using a 3D printer is not too surprising. You can buy lathes and milling machines without restrictions and can undoubtedly make a better gun than this so no, no one will use this as a reason to outlaw 3D printing (straw man much?).

If anything, this is bringing attention to a somewhat obvious conclusion– that you can recreate 800 year old technology using a 3D printer (i.e. attention snoring).

They surely like their guns as much as high-fructose corn syrup, if not even more. If you need a gun to feel safe or worse actually be safe… there is something terribly wrong with society in that place.

I think, i got carried away a little playing Cowboy. Just to make clear, when mentioning Texas i was thinking about the clichee cowboy from countless Western movies.

Looking at my comments again, i see that they can be somewhat offensive to Texan visitors of this forum, and i want to apologize for my misbehaviour :(

Fact is, that with regard to gun ownership per capita amongst US federal states, Texas is in the midfield with anywhere between 30…40%.

However, i still think that all the gun obsession in USA (the most heavily armed country in the world — that means worse than any arabic, middle-east, african or south-american country) is not healthy, and is an indication of a lingering gang culture underlying its society.

There is excellent reasons to make sure this technology is
ubiquitous and available. Those like Senator Schumer and
Feinstein who hate freedom fear this because to own a weapon
is the sign of a free person…serfs and slaves are ALWAYS
disarmed.

I’d be wary of firing one- it would certainly be a Dangerous Prototype!

On a more practical line, I’d probably try making a gun out of wood before turning to ABS plastic and a huge printer. A “heavy” wood like oak, ivory, jarrah etc. would probably handle the pressure & heat longer before failure. Eight inches long, one inch thick, drill a hole with the grain big enough to take a .22 and there’s your barrel.

I would think the barrel is the most “real” part of a gun (along with the cartridge), ok you also need a firing pin/hammer but the rest is support and accessories. But in the US (apparently), the law regarding this modular gun applies only to the “lower receiver section”. A simple (inaccurate, and unsafe) barrel might be no more than a simple pipe, which is probably not practical to regulate in commerce.

Perhaps if everyone had to make their own weapons, we might still be safer than we are now, on the assumption that some bad actors would not want to take the trouble. Of course the Boston event points out that some are willing to roll their own.

While this is probably the wrong blog to have any influence with this post, here goes anyway.

I really do hate guns. People should not ‘have a right to bare arms’. Maybe during slavery/war with Europe thing, but now now.

That said, I was brought up firing air-powered rifles. I played tons of shooters and still enjoy them. I can imagine shooting deer or the likes can be a thrill, though I would never personally for enjoyment a life is a life.

I can understand the fascination owning or more importantly shooting a gun.

That said, I hate guns and they should never be in peoples home.

This guy however is proving a very valuable point. I have a printer at home. I can print money if I wish to do so. I can print any certificate, if I wish to do so. I can print anything I want. But I don’t. For obvious reasons, one it being against the law.
In a few years time, we may all very well have a printer in our home. I want to be able to print whatever I can. And while there will be laws, I’m sure, I should be able to print a gun. You can’t outlaw that. You can, and should, outlaw gun ownership.

The thing is, you can put as many laws into place as you wish, anybody who wishes to do nasty things will do them, no matter what the law says. The video brings up the newton incident, I’m sure there’s a law against randomly shooting people.

So while this is a, not so happy development in several aspects, it hopefully will start more serious discussions. Probably not in the America, but hopefully in the rest of the world. But lets all remember our freedom. We should be free to create and upload files to whatever site we choose to. That’s what freedom and open source is about.

It isn’t that crazy as you would think because if it was that dangerous, everyone would be dead and they aren’t. The reason America has guns in the first place was because of tyrrany; Feudalism was a system set up in the middle ages where you worked for a king and in return the king promised protection but instead of protecting the population, the knights in shining armor were the cause of damsels being in distress instead of protecting them. You can’t always think that someone is going to care more about you than you and if everyone isn’t willing to stand up for what is right then evil will take your place. The King of England took advantage of his subjects just like governments take more than their fair share of taxes from people today so they can take the money out of the left pocket and put it into the right pocket.

lol I just bought a $10000.00 3d printer to print a gun !!!
Now can someones help me for the barrel printing part ….
Cause I’m heading on the hacking side !
I need to be able to print high strength and print new shocks for my old car !

lol yes we can print gun with a plastic barrel …
so what, we can build more efficient gun with $20 of hardware and a water pipe.
USA SHOULD ban water pipe !!!
…